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World Cup: Reign of Spain plainly on the wane: Feschuk

They were thrashed by the Netherlands in their World Cup opener, and Chile will be no pushover on Wednesday, but here’s hoping defending champion Spain can muster one last glorious game before its time at the top ends.

Spain forward Pedro Rodriguez controls the ball during a training session at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday ahead of Wednesday's clash with Chile.
(LLUIS GENE / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

RIO DE JANEIRO—Call me a degenerate sports geek, but one of my favourite parts of this job has nothing to do with, say, getting to bunk in an expense-account apartment steps from famed Copacabana Beach.

I’m bored after two seconds on the seashore. But I never tire of the opportunity to watch great athletes practise. You see some things you’ll never see in games, and occasionally it’s freak-show amazing. I remember how, after Raptors workouts all those years ago, Vince Carter used to reel off one-handed set shots, with no knee bend, from mid-court. Most of his teammates had to heave it with much bodily oomph from that distance, but Vinsanity was strong enough to swish it with a flick of the wrist.

I remember seeing John Tavares, back when the Olympian was about 16 years old, doing puck-on-a-string dangling tricks that made me think he could make a decent living forming a hockey version of the Harlem Globetrotters.

I remember being excited to watch Vijay Singh in his prime hitting range balls, because Singh was renowned for loving to hit range balls more than maybe anyone in the world. Someone later told me Singh stayed on the tee for three hours that day, short work for him. I lasted about an hour and 20 minutes. So I fibbed off the top. I sometimes tire of the opportunity to watch great athletes hone their craft, especially their pitching wedge when the media-tent meal is being served

Still, it was a huge pleasure to take in Spain’s training session here at the Maracana stadium on the eve of Wednesday’s World Cup game against Chile. I’m no soccer lifer, but I’ve been watching and admiring the way Spain plays for a handful of years now. It’s not only because they’re the defending World Cup and Euro champions; it’s that their quick-touch possession game, to my eye, has been one of the greatest shows in global sports, a machine to behold. And here was a chance to get a quick look under the hood.

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Reporters were only permitted to view a short stretch of the workout. And at first I wondered why I’d bothered. There was some idle kicking around. There were calisthenics performed with military precision. Before long, though, it got awfully good. The team began performing a drill that offered a bit of insight into its collective genius.

To prepare, pylons were laid out to create a miniature playing field; the marked-off space was less than a quarter of the size of the full pitch. What ensued was a high-level game of keep-away, 10 against 10, no goalkeepers. Pass-pass-pass, touch-touch-touch. It was highly entertaining to see a ball move with such speed and precision.

I timed a few stretches of the action. In one 30-second span, I counted 31 passes. In another 15-second snippet, 17 passes. Pass and move. Pass and move. Only rarely did a player keep the ball on his foot for more than a beat before zipping it along. But the options weren’t exactly limitless. The quarters were tight. Defenders were closing quickly. As a result there were some incredibly creative escapes. There were balls delivered to safety — and sometimes to the other team — off every conceivable inch of the foot.

Anyhow, the idea of the drill, clearly, wasn’t to entertain the media. But the practice-plan logic made total sense — if a team can find angles and lanes in such a confined space, playing within the regulation boundaries will come to seem easy.

Not since before Spain emerged as a world power have they found themselves in such a hard, hard place. After enduring a 5-1 beating in their opening game against the Netherlands, Spain has been essentially left for dead in a gutter. There’d been talk in the lead-up to the tournament that they were past their best-before date as a core unit. The great Xavi, who’s been one of the centrepieces of their control approach, is 34 now. Xabi Alonso, the rugged midfielder, is 32. Andres Iniesta, who scored the winning goal in the 2010 final, is 30. Given how much they’ve relied on tireless motoring, or wearing opponents out with their relentless games of keep-away — well, becoming the first team to win back-to-back World Cups since Brazil in 1958 and 1962 was going to be a lot to ask of such high-mileage athletes.

Their drubbing at the hands of the Dutch confirmed as much in some minds. Spain hadn’t conceded five goals in a game since 1963. Yes, they also lost their opening match of the 2010 World Cup, 1-0 to Switzerland, and wound up champs.

But this seems different. They’ve got real problems here, and the top of the list resides in goal. It was 33-year-old captain Iker Casillas who justifiably took a big chunk of the blame for the Game 1 onslaught; he wasn’t very good on at least three of the five goals. He looked rusty, uncomfortable. And given that he didn’t play regularly this season for his club team, Real Madrid, maybe that made sense.

The obvious move for Game 2 would have been to hand the net to 23-year-old David De Gea, the uber-confident Manchester United ’keeper. But De Gea was injured in practice this week; he’s not expected to be available during the group stage. Spain’s third goalie, Pepe Reina, is another option. Manager Vincent Del Bosque probably wishes he had more.

It looks grim enough, to be sure. The Spanish, who were lifeless in the second half against the Dutch, are being lambasted in the press. And their next opponent, Chile, a 3-1 winner over Australia in its opener, is no pushover.

But one of the keys to Spain’s success has been its all-for-one approach. While continental neighbours like Portugal so often play as individuals, Spain rarely seems to lack for cohesion. This tournament will clearly re-test the strength of those bonds.

“We have earned the right to trust ourselves,” Xabi Alonso told reporters this week.

Said Iniesta on Tuesday: “We’ll have to play the next matches as if they were finals.”

On Tuesday, their practice amounted to a difficult game, and it was a pleasure to see. Pass-pass-pass, touch-touch-touch. The style is sometimes called tika-taka, which is not to be confused with the tick-tocking of the countdown clock on Spain’s dwindling run as the world standard. Time catches up to every reign. Spain’s will be no different. But here’s hoping one of the great teams of its sporting generation will find a way to wow the world at least one more time.

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